


little soldier boy, come marching home

by daringyounggrayson



Series: leaves from the vine [1]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Depression, Dick Grayson is a Ghost, Family, Gen, Ghost Powers, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is A Ghost, Major Character Injury, ghost au, references to suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24564115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daringyounggrayson/pseuds/daringyounggrayson
Summary: After Jason dies and before he comes back, he spends his days tethered to Bruce as a ghost. Being dead has given him the ability to sense when people are about to die, something he feels is pointless as it has yet to help him save any of the soon-to-be victims. But he finds a renewed sense of determination to prevent the inevitable when Dick starts making Jason's death-sense go haywire.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Robins
Series: leaves from the vine [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775527
Comments: 105
Kudos: 369





	1. Jason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! It's been a minute since I've posted anything on here, but I'm excited to be back! The title for this fic is borrowed from the song [Leaves from the Vine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErmZRsCIUsE) from Avatar: the Last Airbender. I wrote a lot of this fic while listening to [this remix of the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myec4V77180), which is amazing and I highly recommend listening to it while reading this if you want some bonus angst

Being dead, Jason has learned, means that he can sense death. He can always tell when someone is about to die. Usually, it’s a victim on the streets, already in the process of dying, but he can tell even before they get hit. It’s not so much that a dark cloud looms over them, but Jason can feel it in his gut (well, where his gut used to be), and it’s never wrong.

Jason isn’t sure how quickly the death-sense turns on, though. So far, everyone who’s had it has had it when Jason met them. The longest he’s seen someone with it was a couple of hours, but that’s not much to go on. It might turn on only when the universe or whoever is certain that the person is a goner, or maybe once a decision is made leading up to a certain death, or maybe it’s a standard two-week notice—or, or, or.

None of it really matters, though, because no matter how much time Jason theoretical has until the countdown ends, there’s nothing he can do to help. He’s tried—god he’s tried—but even if he could be an active being in this world again, once the death-sense is activated, it’s too late for any sort of intervention, paranormal or otherwise. He’s hovered above Batman’s shoulder as the man watched paramedics fail to save too many victims to know that much.

It’s upsetting, being an all-death-knowing being, but at least when things get rough, he can always look to Bruce and literally tell if he’ll make it. Jason isn’t sure what will happen to him if Bruce dies. Maybe Bruce will turn into a ghost too and they can at least have each other, or maybe Jason will finally pass on or whatever.

He’s not sure he likes either option very much, though, so lucky for him, Bruce has yet to activate the death-sense.

Dick, on the other hand, has.

Jason gasps when he first sees it—a human reflex that hasn’t yet died off. When Dick shows up at the manor, the death-sense screams at Jason. He hovers close to Dick, trying to find an injury that isn’t there.

Normally, Jason would avoid getting close to people like that because his closeness makes everyone but Bruce shiver. Dick shivers, as expected, but he adjusts to the temperature fluctuation faster than Jason knows he should have. He’s not quite sure what to make of that.

Jason spends the evening anxiously hovering close to Dick. Wherever Dick goes, Jason follows. He watches Dick eat and waits for him to choke (he doesn’t). He watches Dick train and waits for him to fall and break his neck (he doesn’t). He follows Dick on patrol and waits for him to get shot (he doesn’t). Jason can’t focus on anything that Dick is actually doing at the manor—what he’s talking about, what he’s planning on doing—because the death-sense is covering all of his other senses. He wonders if this is especially intense because of his connection to Dick, or if this is going to be really, really bad.

When three days pass and Dick, still alive, heads home, Jason goes back to hovering around Bruce. He seems to relax with Jason’s presence, which makes Jason realize two things: one, he’s never been apart from Bruce that long, and two, perhaps he does have more influence—positive influence—on people than he thought.

Bruce never gets a phone call asking him to come in to identify a body, so Jason takes that as a sign that Dick wasn’t hit by a car on the way back to Bludhaven. Dick calls Bruce later that week, proving that he’s still alive, but even his voice makes Jason’s death-sense go off, telling Jason that not even Dick could defeat it.

This is when Jason becomes convinced that Dick has some kind of terminal illness.

When Bruce and Alfred are asleep, Jason goes down to the cave to take a look through medial files. He doesn’t find anything, meaning that he probably hasn’t missed Dick telling Bruce that he was diagnosed with something terminal, which is good. The only thing is that could just mean, probably means, that Dick himself doesn’t know yet.

Jason needs blood samples, maybe some scans, but he really doesn’t see how he can do anything like that without a body. And even if he had one, Dick doesn’t seem like the type of person who will sit still while a needle starts floating toward his vein.

The only way to save Dick, then, is to get a message to Bruce. Jason’s tried before, shortly after he became a ghost. There had been a long internal debate about it: Would Bruce believe Jason had actually turned into a ghost, or would it just make Bruce think that he was going insane? Would knowledge of Jason’s ghostly presence help or hurt?

At first, Jason thought it was best to play it safe. But then something changed. Jason kept re-living (re-dying?) his death, and it got the point he couldn’t tell where he was or when he was and all he wanted was Bruce to fix it, to look at him.

Jason forgot all about trying to protect Bruce after that. It wasn’t so much that Jason had decided that getting Bruce’s attention was worth the risk of the man diving deeper into a mental breakdown; Jason hadn’t been in the right headspace to recognize the risk at all.

For a week, he’d done everything in his power to get Bruce’s attention, destroying a part of himself in the process. But Jason’s efforts had all been for nothing; it hadn’t worked. He’d managed to knock over some books, and while Bruce had looked near him, he hadn’t looked _at_ him. And he never would.

It was then that Jason realized he wouldn’t get any comfort from Bruce like this. Jason would have to work out his problems on his own, just like before.

That was then, though. Now, Jason has three months of ghost-experience and new skills to show for it. He has more control when he picks up objects, he's regained the fine motor skills needed to type—and probably write, though he hasn’t tried—so why not the ability to leave a message? Even if Bruce can’t see Jason, maybe he’d be able to see Jason’s note.

The real trick will be leaving an anonymous message that Bruce will both believe and not take as a threat.

The problem is that Jason—or Dick, rather—doesn't have time to really think this plan through and Bruce-proof it. So, Jason settles on sending Bruce an email from one of Dick’s concerned “friends.” Sure, it's something Bruce will easily be able to prove false, but it's a start. It's something.

Or it should have been.

Unfortunately for all parties involved, the reality Jason finds himself trapped in decides to make things harder by doing the following: When Jason starts typing his message, his hands go through the keyboard. He tries again and again with no use. He takes a breath and tries to use the mouse, which works just fine. He opens a new google tab and smashes the keyboard, watching as the letters show up in the search bar. He repeats the process in the email he started, and it works again. He deletes the nonsense string of letters and begins to type his message again, hopeful that—

His hands to go through the keyboard.

Jason frowns; if the veil or the universe or whatever isn’t going to let him communicate with the living, then being able to interact with inanimate objects is kind of useless. Still, maybe a less direct method is worth a shot.

He goes up to the library and collects a stack of books. He's able to pick them up with ease, but when he tries to arrange the books in a shape that resembles letters, the stack slides through his arms and crashes onto the floor. He lets out a frustrated scream and puts his face in his hands. Jason lets himself slide to the ground on his hands and knees, angry tears hot against his cheeks as if he's still alive. He wonders for a moment if he isn’t actually dead; just cursed. Invisible and unable to communicate, forced to watch people die—his loved ones die—and unable to warn anyone of the upcoming danger. Jason really wishes Bruce could see him, even if only for a minute.

(Jason takes a break from his mission after that. He finds Bruce and clings to him, and it feels like Bruce tilts his head forward against Jason’s. They both relax, and even though Jason knows he doesn’t need to breathe, he starts counting breaths the way Bruce had taught him to do when he felt anxious.)

With his previous attempts proving to be failures, Jason only has one option left, and it’s drastic: possession. He isn’t sure if it’s something ghosts are actually capable of, or if it’s just in the movies, but he has to try, no matter how uncomfortable it makes him. The only flaw in this plan is that he has no idea how to start.

Perfect.

oOo

Possession turns out to be the worst idea Jason has ever come up with. After having no luck with Bruce—only succeeding at walking _through_ Bruce, or occasionally not being able to pass through him at all (which—what? Jason still doesn’t know what to think about that)—he decides to try Alfred.

Unlike Dick, Alfred doesn’t adjust to the temperature fluctuation; actually, he gets getting gradually worse. Each time Jason passes through Alfred, he shivers more violently and for longer than the time before. Alfred makes some tea and starts a fire, but neither help. Jason quickly realizes that trying to possess Alfred is useless, but with how desperate he’s become, he can’t get himself to stop until passing through Alfred makes the older man hiss in pain and clutch his chest.

Jason retreats to his old bedroom after that, hiding under the covers as if he isn’t the monster he’s trying to hide from.

oOo

Dick’s back at the manor about a week after the failed messaging attempts started. He’s arguing with Bruce about something Jason can’t understand, and the death-sense is going even crazier now. It’s giving Jason a headache, something he didn’t realize he could still get. He wishes he could sleep, but he hasn’t been able to do that since before.

Dick seems healthy, though, which doesn’t make sense, because when the death-sense is this strong, the victim is usually bleeding out. But Dick is fine, keeping up with Bruce and seeming more or less like himself, albeit his angry self.

Eventually, the two become quiet and Bruce stalks off. Dick looks up at the ceiling, sighing loudly while running a hand through his hair. He heads to the changing area to find Bruce, and when they come back, they’re in their uniforms and clambering into the Batmobile, bickering replaced by a stony silence.

oOo

Patrol isn’t patrol. It’s a mission, probably what Dick had been arguing about. Jason knows that Bruce is recovering from an injury, and that he’s been spending a lot of time on the computer instead of sleeping. Whatever’s happening is big, and Dick must not think trying to take it down now is a good idea, either because of the timing, lack of information, or Bruce not being at the top of his game—probably all three.

Damn, Jason really wishes he’d been able to pay attention to what they were talking about.

oOo

The explosion makes Jason cling to Bruce, and he swears for a second that Bruce clings back. He’s fine, of course, and Bruce isn’t _fine_ , but he’s sturdy. He doesn’t set the death-sense off. He gets up.

Dick, though, isn’t as lucky. There’s a pole running straight through his stomach and blood dripping down the back of his neck from a head wound. Somehow, he’s still alive, but Jason knows this is it. This is why his death-sense has been going off for the past two weeks, why it got ten times stronger tonight.

Knowing finally makes the fog clear, and Jason can understand human speech again.

“B-Bruce,” Dick stutters. His hands are shaking, eyes glued to the pole.

Bruce is filled with fear, reminiscent of the kind Jason saw when Bruce found his body buried under rubble.

“I’m right here,” Bruce tells him, hovering over him for only a moment before he starts taking vitals. “You’re going to be alright. Focus on your breathing and stay still. I’m going to radio the Watchtower for a medical evac.”

Bruce does as he promises, all while Jason watches in horror as the scene plays out in front of him. Bruce, barking orders into the comm, reporting the incident and Dick’s vitals. A medical team, a group of strangers who come out of nowhere, sawing the pole down enough so it’s still holding Dick’s insides inside and they can move him. Dick, clinging to Bruce the way Jason’s ghost did when he first died. Bruce, reassuring Dick that the inevitable won’t happen tonight.

Jason feels like he shouldn’t be here, but he can’t be anywhere else either.

He clings to Dick because that’s all he can do, and Dick doesn’t shiver.

oOo

The paramedics treat Dick quickly and precisely. They put gauze on the head wound and around the pole, they put him in a neck brace and some other kind of brace to support his back. They ask him questions and carefully move him onto a gurney.

It’s scary, especially because Jason knows that it’s useless.

Dick is taken into a treatment room as soon as they get to the Watchtower’s medical bay, and Bruce and Jason follow, Jason still clinging to Dick and Bruce holding Dick’s hand tightly.

“It should hurt,” Dick is saying, and he’s right, he should be screaming right now, crying, anything other than this distant stillness. “It should, right? Why can’t I feel it?”

Bruce just squeezes Dick’s hand and exchanges a look with the head doctor. Everyone knows Dick isn’t going to make it; the doctors going to make him comfortable, or at least try to.

Despite knowing the cruel reality waiting for them, they still do their best to try to help Dick, to prevent the inevitable. They do scans and make a plan, and Alfred finally arrives when they’re in the middle of sticking needles into Dick, setting him up with an IV full of saline and some type of medicine. They tell him it will make him sleepy.

“Can I go back with him?” Bruce asks, desperate. He seems to be teetering between facing the reality of the situation and clinging to the make-believe world where he himself can will Dick to survive. Jason wonders if he’d worn the same expression when had ran to Jason’s explosion site.

The doctor nods. “Scrub up. You know where to go?”

“Yes.” He looks at Dick, brushes his bangs back and presses a kiss to his forehead. “I’ll be right back, sweetheart.”

“Bruce,” Dick says, voice still too airy and confused but somehow less distant than it had been a few minutes ago.

“I’ll be with him, sir,” Alfred promises, gripping Dick’s shoulder.

Once Bruce is out of ear-shot, Alfred and Dick spend their time saying goodbye without saying goodbye.

Alfred doesn’t come with them when they roll Dick down to the operating room. Bruce is in scrubs and gloves and doesn’t look like Bruce. Dick is getting cold, something Jason didn’t realize he could still feel.

Jason decides then that he’ll stay until the end. Bruce needs him, he knows, but Dick shouldn’t be alone right now, and Bruce won’t be allowed to stay.

 _Sorry, B, Robins only_ , Jason thinks.

Dick had said that once, hadn’t he? Jason can picture it. It was the second time Dick came over after Jason moved in, after he’d given Jason his blessing and old uniform. They were going to get milkshakes, just the two of them.

“Wait,” Dick says suddenly, and Jason snaps back to reality to watch him weakly bat the anesthesia mask away, trying but unable to turn his head. “I need a few minutes.”

“Dick, we can’t wait,” Bruce argues, insists. “You need to let the doctors do their job.”

“Bruce,” Dick tries, and he grips Bruce’s arm as best he can. “I’m, I just wanted to tell you—”

“No. You’re going to be fine. We can talk after, we can—” Bruce—is Bruce about to cry?

“Thank you,” Dick interrupts, and Jason watches him gain a sudden moment of clarity and firmness. “And I love you, more than anything. I know we’ve had our—well, our disagreements, but I’ve always known you’d be there for me despite everything, and, and—"

“You have and continue to be the light of my life, Dick.” This is Bruce saying goodbye, whether the man recognizes it as a goodbye or not. “You’ve . . . you’re going to be alright. You’ll come home with me and Alfred while you recover, and we’ll take it one day at a time, and you’ll . . . you need to let the doctors do their job. Please.”

“I will, B.”

They place the mask over Dick’s face and he counts back from ten. Bruce leaves while they intubate him, and Alfred is waiting in the hall. Alfred takes Bruce in his arms, and Jason can’t seem to look away as the two men who raised him cry.

Seeing people grieve is the most horrible thing Jason has ever been forced to watch.

oOo

Dick goes into cardiac arrest before they can finish repairing the brain bleed. They do their best, but Dick was dead before the explosion even went off.

Someone leaves to inform Bruce and Alfred, maybe the crowd of people who almost definitely gathered the second word got out about Nightwing. The rest stay to clean up Dick. They take the pole out, stitch him up, and wipe the blood away. They unhook him from the useless machines, put him in a gown, and cover him with a blanket.

Dick looks like Jason had looked before Bruce took him to the morgue.

oOo

They move Dick to another room—not a morgue—and let Bruce and Alfred see him. They don’t even try to hold back their pain. Bruce has Dick in his arms in seconds, and he’s rocking him and kissing his freshly cleaned hair and saying _no, no, my boy, no_ and Jason can’t take it. He looks away; he lets himself grieve.

Then, something makes the back of Jason’s neck prickle, and he shivers for the first time since he’s died. He looks up toward Bruce only to find that another ghost has taken his place. This one is smaller than him, but he’s familiar. He’s seen the photos; Jason knows even before he speaks that this ghost boy is Dick.

“B, I’m right here, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay, I’m right here,” Dick says, voice higher than normal. It’s the voice of a child. This is a child. Why would Dick die as a child?

“Dick?” Jason asks.

Dick’s head shoots up, but he doesn’t stop clinging to Bruce. “Jason? How? You’re—” Dick stops himself.

“Yeah,” Jason nods, “I’m dead. _We’re_ dead.”

“Then why . . .” Dick trails off, eyes glancing from Bruce to Alfred to the corpse and back to Bruce. “Does everyone turn into a ghost?”

Jason shakes his head. “You’re the first ghost I’ve met.” Jason really hopes his surprise isn’t written all over his face, but he’s out of practice so he doesn’t count on it.

“But, then . . . why us?” There’s something between fear and desperation in his eyes.

Jason shrugs. He’d thought about it too, but he’d had no one to ask, no one to hear him ask. “Maybe being Robin really did give us magic.”

Dick’s face tightens into a deeper frown. He leans into Bruce. Bruce doesn’t shiver, and Jason swears Bruce is leaning back into Dick.

“You’re . . . you look younger, than when you died. Smaller.”

Jason had noticed that the day after he’d died. He was underweight again, and he recognized the clothes that he was wearing as ones he’d picked out when Bruce and Alfred took him to get new clothes—ones that actually fit and didn’t have holes in them. He also remembered having outgrown those clothes quickly. He’d been underweight and malnourished; between recovering from that and normal growth spurts, he’d gone through a lot of clothes.

“Yeah. I think I’m about twelve,” is what Jason says instead, leaving out the “almost thirteen" part that he’s he'd left in during his first conversation with Dick nearly three years ago. It's still confusing to Jason how he can feel so sure about his age, and it’s not just his clothes and size that give him that certainty; the knowledge feels somewhat innate. “But you, you look _way_ younger.”

Panic spreads across Dick’s face and he looks down at himself. He examines his hands, plucks at his shirt. It has Haly’s Circus written across it.

Jason comes closer to Dick, sits down next to him and leans against Bruce (just like always, Bruce doesn’t shiver and Jason swears he leans closer to him).

Dick looks at his corpse, and he feels distant to Jason. “It doesn’t make any sense, why would I be eight again?”

Jason hums a little. “My guess is that we got put back to the time we were happiest.” Jason loved his mom, the mom who raised him, and even the one who got him killed most days, now. But growing up wasn’t easy, and moving in with Bruce felt like the first time he could put his guard down.

Dick’s face scrunches up and he turns away from his corpse. “Nice theory, but when I had to move in with Bruce, I was the farthest thing from happy.”

Oh. Shit. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Whatever.” Dick had never really talked about his parents when the two of them were alive, and apparently he plans to keep the trend going. “It’s Bruce, then, right? He remembers us how we were when he first met us.” Then, after a beat, he concludes, “He’s keeping us here.”

“I know that.” Jason’s a detective, too, and figuring out that Bruce sucks at grief was easy. He was just a little off about what role he played in his ghostly form. (Or maybe Jason just has more influence over his ghostly form than Dick does. Who knows.)

Jason doesn’t know what to expect from Dick next. Maybe a plan on how to help Bruce let go so they can move on, or maybe a deeper analysis of their current predicament. But he does neither; he breaks into sobs.

“Dick,” Jason says, voice empathetic and desperate. He raises his hand toward Dick, hesitating instead of letting it land. It hangs there, frozen in mid-air.

Dick’s face is curled into Bruce’s neck and he’s crying loudly, ghost tears that never leave his face. Bruce leans closer to the body he shouldn’t be able to feel, but it’s not the same. Bruce can’t comfort Dick like this. No one can—well, no one living.

Jason wraps his arms around Dick’s back, just like he’d done when the death-sense first kicked in exactly two weeks ago, and Dick lets him. Jason holds him and shushes him and tells him things will get easier. Not necessarily better, but easier. Because they were Robins, and Robins are nothing if not resilient and adaptive.

But they’re also two dead kids, so there's no need to put a rush on the resilience and adaptiveness stuff. There will be plenty of time for that later. For now, they’re Robins in mourning, two little soldier boys who just want to come marching home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it! Comments and kudos are always appreciated! I hope you guys are doing well and staying safe <3
> 
> [tumblr](https://daringyounggrayson.tumblr.com/)


	2. Dick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, my life has been a bit hectic lately. Hopefully the long chapter makes up for it?
> 
> Content Warning: Depression, self-destructive behavior, and references to suicidal thoughts. None of the characters attempt or die of suicide.

Being dead, Dick has learned, is really hard. He won’t lie: there were times when he was alive—barely twenty-years-old and feeling like the whole world was caving in on him and it was somehow his fault—that he thought being dead would be easier, preferable. He’d never actively thought of acting on that idea, just knew that one day it would happen without any effort on his part and that when it did, he’d be okay with it, maybe even welcome it.

In his line of work, that day would probably happen sooner rather than later. It was practically a given. And when death eventually called, Dick would cease to exist along with all of his overwhelming feelings and shortcomings. It should have been easy, dying; it should have been a welcomed escape.

But it wasn’t, and it isn’t. Because Dick’s not _gone_ ; he’s still here, forced to witness the pain his death is causing. And seeing people grieve? It’s the most horrible thing Dick has ever been forced to watch.

(He’s seen people grieve before, of course, but there’s a different kind of grief people do in private. It’s . . . it’s something that should remain private. Something Dick shouldn’t be seeing.)

And, obviously, Dick knew that his inevitable death would hurt his family. He knew that. But. He also knew death was imminent, and with his lifestyle, dying young was as likely as the sun rising the following morning. He’d made peace with it, he’d taken precautions, and he’d hoped that his family would be able to grieve and recover without too much hassle.

The aftermath that Jason’s death left them in shook that hope, but Dick had been too caught up in his own grief to really think about what losing another son would do to Bruce. Whenever he thought about Bruce and how much he was struggling, Dick would tell himself that Bruce was resilient, and as long as Dick and Alfred were by his side, he would be alright. It was just a given with Bruce that no matter how many times he got knocked down, he would get back up—even if he needed a hand or a push to get there.

Dick had treated his own presence as another given. So why take those extra precautions? Why force Bruce to rush through his grieving process?

Now, two-thirds of Bruce’s main support system are dead and the grief has doubled. Watching Bruce grieve over Jason had been hard, but this took it to a new level.

Because while Dick had been there during that time of mourning, he hadn’t been there twenty-four-seven. And, as he’s already acknowledged, people grieve differently in private.

Dick’s own grief probably clouded how he viewed Bruce’s grief too, which had probably made it less . . . less _jarring_. This time, though, Dick isn’t grieving much of anything, meaning he has no protection from Bruce’s breakdown. Just guilt and uselessness.

“You could go back in,” Jason says, voice hollow.

The two of them are with Bruce right now, Jason leaning against his left side and Dick leaning against his right. They’re in front of Dick’s grave, Bruce’s preferred spot since the funeral. Jason had said Dick didn’t have to stay to watch that either, but Dick had. In retrospect, he should have listened to Jason; he hadn’t had the strength to attend his own funeral, but being dead meant he didn’t need strength anymore. He’s kind of untouchable in that respect.

“I can’t leave him alone,” Dick says in a voice just as hollow as Jason’s. They sound like they haven’t slept in days, which is true. But ghosts don’t need sleep, so their voices shouldn’t be affected. (Really, their voices shouldn’t _be_ , but that’s a different debate, one that he’s gotten tired of.)

“I’ll be with him.”

“He needs me.”

“Yeah.” Jason sounds like he wants to say something else, maybe share how his early ghost days went. But he doesn’t. They just sit there in the thick silence.

Eventually, it starts to rain and Alfred comes outside to collect Bruce.

Alfred’s not doing well either, eyes bloodshot and spending too much time in Dick’s bedroom. Taking care of Bruce helps him cope, helps them all cope, but someone should be looking after Alfred, too.

Dick clings to Bruce’s back as they make the careful trek back to the manor, Jason floating slightly above them, him. Alfred has to help Bruce walk, Dick notes; sitting by the grave for that long must be making his knee act up.

Bruce gets put to bed and refuses the offer of food. He lies down and Dick curls up close to his chest and closes his eyes, feeling the way he had when Bruce used to comfort him after a nightmare a lifetime ago. Dick can’t sleep, of course, doesn’t need sleep, but he likes to lie down with his eyes closed. He likes to pretend, he supposes.

Jason leaves the two of them alone, something he doesn’t do often. Dick wonders what he does while he’s away.

Maybe he’s looking after Alfred; someone should.

oOo

“Where are we going?” Dick asks. They’re in the car, a civilian and during the day. This is his first time in a car as a ghost, and he keeps feeling like something is missing—his keys, his phone, his wallet, his seatbelt—all the things he no longer has nor needs.

Jason shrugs. He’s relaxed; he’s likely been on plenty of these types of car rides. “Probably not WE. Maybe he’s following up a lead as Bruce Wayne?”

Right. Technically, Dick has been murdered, and his murderer is on the run. Bruce has been running lots of things in the Cave, but he hasn’t been out as Batman yet. It’s only been a week since Dick died, but based off of the news alerts that Bruce keeps ignoring on his phone, Gotham’s already looking pretty rough.

Too much time has passed since Jason shared his guess, so Dick doesn’t bother replying. He’s been doing that a lot lately—falling into his own headspace and ignoring the one person who can actually see and hear him.

Jason doesn’t seem to mind much, Dick’s spaciness. Sometimes, Dick will space out and suddenly it will be dark and he doesn’t know where he is, doesn’t remember that he’s dead. One time, he saw his eight-year-old hands and had been convinced his whole growing up had been a terrible nightmare, and all he’d wanted was for Bruce to come in and scoop him up in his big arms and tell him that, yes, that was all it had been: a terrible nightmare.

But he didn’t, and it hadn’t been.

Instead, Jason was the one who had comforted him, helped Dick ground himself. When he finally came back to reality, a vase was smashed on the ground next to a fallen painting. Jason had mumbled something about needing to do something about the tantrums before Alfred or Bruce started to notice, but Dick didn’t see the point. What would they think, anyway? And would it matter?

This time when he snaps back to the present, Bruce is out of the car and grabbing folded boxes out of the trunk. Alfred grabs a handful as well, and the two head into a building Dick recognizes as his old apartment complex.

“They’re going to go through all of my stuff,” Dick realizes. His voice sounds weird, like it’s coming from someone else. A narrator—no, more like a confused child asking their parent about something they can’t comprehend.

Jason rests his hand on Dick’s shoulder. “You don’t have to go in. We could wait out here.”

“Did you watch us go through your stuff?” Dick asks.

“Does it matter?”

Dick shrugs. “Kind of.”

Jason huffs, probably rolls his eyes too but Dick isn’t looking. “At first. It took you guys a long time, and it got boring after a while.”

Boring is one way to put it, painful is another.

“It wasn’t weird?”

“Oh, it was very weird. Not exactly a fan, but it has to be done, right?”

“I guess.”

Dick decides to go up, at least at first. He wants to see his flat one last time, and Bruce could probably use some support.

His flat is exactly how he’d left it: gym bag hanging by the door, unread mail in a pile on a side table, dishes next to the sink waiting to be washed, unfolded laundry sitting in a basket, and the beginnings of a dinner still sitting in the fridge, right where he’d shoved before booking it to Gotham.

Funny how Dick thought he’d come back to finish making it.

The first thing Bruce and Alfred do is hunt down all of Dick’s Nightwing gear and carefully tuck it into the boxes. Dick doesn’t—didn’t—have much, nothing like the arsenal Bruce keeps, but it takes more boxes than Dick thought it would. Bruce and Alfred are silent as they pack his things, silent and private. Dick can quickly see now how his apartment will take days to go through.

Mere days for his whole life to be packed away in boxes, buried.

Next, Alfred moves to the kitchen, tackling the dishes and going through Dick’s fridge—i.e., throwing the food out and breaking into silent sobs when he finds the dinner Dick had been in the middle of preparing, still in the pot. While he does this, Bruce walks around the living-room-like space, marking anything he wants to keep.

Bruce doesn’t mark the couch; Dick loves that couch, had loved.

“They can’t just give all my stuff away,” Dick says, angry as he revels in the unfairness of it all. Bruce had never been happy about him living in Bludhaven, and now he can finally erase its existence.

“Hey,” Jason says, firm and demanding. “I know this is upsetting, okay? But you need to stay calm. You can’t throw a tantrum every time you get upset.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You’re about to,” Jason snaps. “And, look, I know you’re not doing it on purpose, but you need to start recognizing when you’re about to blow and do something about it.”

Dick looks at Jason, shocked by the undertones of anger. “So you want me to be happy about this?”

“No, but I don’t want you to start breaking shit over it!” Jason yells. “Like, not that I was perfect or anything at first, but at least I didn’t blow up over Bruce throwing out junk mail with my name on it!”

Dick backs up, refusing to cry. He tells himself that he’s not an actual eight-year-old so he doesn’t need to react like one, but no matter how much he tells himself that, it doesn’t seem to sink in. So, like an eight-year-old, he runs to his room.

“Dick, wait, I’m sorry!” Jason is quick to call after him, voice heavy with guilt.

He’s right behind him, but Dick doesn’t even want to look at him. He dives under his old bed, and Jason ducks down to look at him.

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you, and I know it’s hard to control your emotions, especially at first. It probably doesn’t help that Bruce’s memory of you has you pinned right after your parents died.”

Dick turns his head away; he hadn’t thought of that before, and he wonders how much truth is in that observation. How much of what he’s feeling is a result of what he felt when he was eight and lost.

“But,” Jason continues, “you could hurt them. Physically for sure, but maybe psychologically too. When, when I first died, maybe a week after, I tried to get Bruce to notice me. He stepped on some of the glass when he was cleaning it up, and he kept looking near me. I know he wondered, and if I kept doing it, he might’ve started thinking he was going nuts.”

“Bruce never mentioned that,” Dick says, trying to remember if he had ever noticed anything in the manor breaking. He’d noticed it got draftier, and maybe a vase or occasional picture frame had gone missing. The latter two he’d blamed Bruce for, the former he hadn’t given much thought.

“Would you?” Jason asks, pulling Dick out of his head before he can get too lost in his spaciness.

Dick shakes his head. “But. But why can’t we let him know we’re here? Don’t you think that could help?”

Jason shrugs. “I really don’t know if knowing about us would help Bruce or just hurt him more. Either way, we’re not able to contact him. I’ve tried.” Something on Jason’s face reads like guilt, but Dick has no idea why, and he doesn’t feel like asking.

“When did,” Dick starts, unsure of how to phrase his question. “How long did it take for everything to stop feeling like this? I feel so out of control and—” he stops himself, not sure if he wants to explain everything he’s feeling to his younger brother.

Jason sighs, and then finally joins Dick under the bed. “It still hurts, but less. I forget that I’m dead sometimes, too, but not as much anymore.”

“When will everything stop feeling so intense? I can’t take seeing Bruce and Alfred like this, and I’m so angry,” Dick admits. He doesn’t know how to explain it, but it’s like his emotions are on steroids. Everything he feels seems heightened, almost like he’s feeling everyone’s emotions for them. And Jason, the way he looks at Dick—guilty, sad, hurt, angry, something between jealousy and resentfulness, guilty again—doesn’t help. “I just want everything to go back to normal.”

Jason bumps Dick’s shoulder. “Me too. But give it some time. In a month, you’ll feel so much better, trust me.”

Dick lets a sob escape his throat. “I hate this, I hate this, _I hate this_.” He doesn’t want want better, he wants _gone_.

Jason puts a hand on Dick’s back, rubbing circles into it and shushing him like he’s a little kid.

Dick shakes him off. “And you shouldn’t be comforting me! I’m supposed to be twenty, and you, you’re supposed to be _my_ kid brother,” Dick chokes out, hands clutching his hair. He takes a breath, forces himself to calm down. He whispers, “Everything’s so messed up.”

“Extremely messed up. But things are different here,” Jason explains calmly. “Maybe together we can figure out the rules.”

“What’s the point.” Dick says, voice hallow again. He hates being the inexperienced one here, and he hates knowing that Jason blames Dick’s extreme reactions on him being trapped in Bruce’s first memory of him, where he’s eight and grieving. And most of all, he hates that Jason might be right, at least partially.

(But that can’t be the whole truth, can it? Because despite the so-called tantrums, Dick doesn’t _feel_ like his eight-year-old self. He feels like himself, his twenty-year-old self, and then something else. Maybe a whisper of the grieving, angry eight-year-old.)

“You’re smart. You’ve noticed how Bruce relaxes when you’re close to him; you can feel him tense up when you leave.”

Dick nods; he has noticed.

“We can help him through this, even if he doesn’t consciously know we’re here. And the faster you help him through this, the faster you’ll be able to get a handle on your own situation,” Jason tells him, and Dick wonders how much of that is true and how much is wishful thinking.

“Is that how it went for you?” Dick asks.

There’s a long silence, and for a moment, Dick wonders if he’s spaced out again. But then Jason takes a breath and finally speaks. “When I first died, I had a really hard time adjusting. I couldn’t talk to anyone and no one could see me, and I—what happened to me was really bad, Dick. It wasn’t quick, and Bruce wasn’t with me, and I didn’t get to say goodbye.” A touch of jealousy.

“That was a lot to take in on its own. But then Bruce was—is—grieving. And when he would get bad, I felt worse too, and more out of control. When that happened, I think we kind of fed off of each other. Things would only get back to baseline after I could calm down or Bruce went on one of his sleeping marathons, or you would come over.”

Dick should have been there more often, and something tells him Jason feels that way too. Now, though, he’s always trying to get Dick away from Bruce. Maybe Dick and Bruce are feeding off of each other like Jason had. Cycling.

“But now,” Jason starts again, “when he gets bad, I can stay calm. I can help.”

“I do help,” Dick insists, because he does.

“Yeah, but not when you’re breaking things. When you do that, Bruce gets worse, and I can’t even help him like that.”

“I don’t mean to,” Dick says defensively. Then, “Your—Willis used to break things around you, didn’t he?”

Jason turns his head away from Dick. “That’s not the point.”

Dick’s tantrums are scary for Jason in more ways than one, and Dick hadn’t even noticed. He really has been an awful brother to Jason. “I’m sorry kiddo, really. I’ll stop.”

“It’s kind of weird for you to call me kiddo,” Jason says, focusing on what hurts the least. “You know, now that I’m older than you.”

Dick chuckles for the first time since he’s died. “Just because I look eight doesn’t mean I’m not still an adult,” Dick says. Because even though something in the back of his head informs him that he’s in his eight-year-old body, and even though sometimes he gets caught up in the echo of his eight-year-old self, he really is the same person he was before he died. Just with something else added onto the pile.

“Yeah, well, being dead gives you a lot of time to think. You gain some perspective. I’m like an honorary adult.”

Dick hums, half-amused and unsure how to respond. He thinks that’s the end of it, but then Jason looks at him again, serious.

“It’s not like you’re never going to get upset again, and that’s fine. I know you can’t control it right now, probably can’t even sense when you’re about to blow. So. Just listen to me, okay?”

“You’re the ghost expert,” Dick says, forcing a smile.

Jason smiles back, nods a little, and then becomes very interested in the floor. They stay under the bed like that, both too exhausted to go back out there with the living.

oOo

At some point, Bruce enters Dick’s bedroom with a few boxes and a stack of post-its. Dick is still under the bed with Jason, and they stay there as they cautiously watch Bruce look around the room. Dick realizes quickly that Bruce isn’t about to sort through Dick’s bedroom; he’s looking for something in particular.

The first thing Bruce finds is the box of stuff Dick took when Jason died: a shirt, a baseball cap—mementos to remember him by. The next and last thing Bruce takes is Zitka. He picks her up and sits on the bed, looking her over. Then, Bruce holds her close to his face and breathes her in.

“I’m so sorry,” Bruce whispers, but the words are not for Zitka. “I never meant for this to happen. You were supposed to be safe.”

Dick crawls out from under the bed, then, and latches onto Bruce. They don’t feed off of each other, it doesn’t cycle; they sit in a moment of shared, acknowledged grief.

This is how Dick helps.

Dick must go spacy again, because next thing he knows, he’s back in the car and far away from the place he used to call home.

oOo

Another two weeks pass before Bruce goes out as Batman. Dick has been a ghost for three weeks now, and while he still spaces out a lot, he’s aware enough to know that Bruce is going after his murderer tonight. Dick is also aware enough to know that Bruce is not in the right headspace to be putting the cowl back on, especially with no one—no Robin—to watch his back.

“We, we need to call someone, do something,” Dick is telling Jason, frantic. They’re in the Batmobile now and far away from any sane, living person.

“We can’t,” Jason tells him, again. “You know we can’t.”

“He’s going to get hurt,” Dick insists. “He hasn’t been sleeping, he’s not thinking clearly. He could get himself killed!”

Jason shakes his head like he’s in denial. “He’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” Jason tells him. He glances over at Bruce, then back to Dick. “He’ll be fine. Trust me.”

“But—”

“ _Trust me_.” Jason shoves Dick toward Bruce. “If you’re sure you want to tag along, you can at least try to calm Bruce down. Just because he’s not dying doesn’t mean he won’t get hurt. If you can calm him down a bit, maybe the recovery won’t be so long.”

Dick thinks back to when Bruce went after the Joker, that first time, right after Jason. Bruce had called Dick, told him exactly where he was going, and Dick had met him there. Dick wasn’t sure what Bruce was planning on doing—who Dick was stopping from hurting whom—but he remembered taking Bruce home, bringing him to Alfred. Dick had been so worked up, then, so terrified, that he’d lashed out. He’d told Bruce he couldn’t deal with this, and that if he couldn’t clean up his act, he should leave Dick out of it.

He hadn’t meant the words, but Bruce took them at face value and didn’t reach out to Dick again, not that he’d done that much before. Contact had been limited before and after Jason, and at both points, Bruce rarely initiated it.

He looks at Jason now, realizing that he had likely seen that fight, seen Dick react so poorly to a grieving father. He can feel Jason’s disappointment, the one from months ago and the one he must feel in this moment. And how is Dick any different now? How is he helping anyone?

He clings to Bruce like Jason asks and closes his eyes, trying not to think of what the end of this drive might bring.

oOo

The fight is relatively short, but it does way more damage than should be possible in that timeframe. But then again, Dick supposes a few seconds had ultimately been responsible for his and Jason’s deaths, so maybe time is more damaging in short bursts.

Dick and Jason had tried to cling to Bruce all through the fight, like a kind of instinct they couldn’t resist. It was one of the few times the two had clung like that, together, and it was as if they were trying to form a shield. Of course, with Robin training still ingrained wherever their minds used to be, reflexes kicked in and they kept trying to dodge attacks and blows that were incapable of landing.

By the end, both men are lying on the ground and bleeding. Externally for sure, but almost definitely internally as well. Dick is sure they’ll die, but Jason gives them a look and says they’ll be fine. He says it with a confidence Dick can’t comprehend, and he wonders for a moment if death has made Jason callous.

Despite his sentiment, Jason helps Dick try and fail to pick up Bruce’s communicator or press his emergency beacon to call for help. Eventually, though, Alfred must decide that too much time had passed or Bruce’s vitals dropped too low and sent an alert to the Cave, because soon they see a van pull up beside them. Alfred hops out, checking Bruce over first and then the man who had killed Dick and tried to kill Bruce.

Alfred calls an ambulance for the man and puts Bruce on the gurney, rolling him into the van. Then the four of them head to Leslie’s.

Dick can’t cling to Bruce, not like this. He’s too wound up and needs to move. Besides, even if he wanted to be still, he’s not getting the relief that clinging to Bruce usually provides. And thinking about what happened is making him angry—and scared and mad _and and and_ —so he takes a break. He tries to go through a breathing exercise, as if he were still alive.

Unfortunately, without a parasympathetic nervous system to activate, it’s just his rapid thoughts and the echo of breathing.

“I’m scared too,” Jason tells him at some point. “But he’ll be okay, eventually.”

“No he won’t,” Dick snaps, and Jason flinches. “Maybe this won’t kill him, but _this_ ”—Dick moves his hand back and forth between him and Jason—“this, will. He won’t stop until he’s dead because that’s what he’s going for.

“The same thing happened when you died, but I had been there. Now he has neither of us, just Alfred, and Alfred’s grieving too. He can’t be expected to fix everything all the time, especially when Bruce doesn’t want to be fixed.”

It’s Jason’s stillness that makes Dick realize he’s never been this blunt about Bruce with Jason before. It’s uncharacteristic of him, but Dick feels like himself in that moment all the same.

“I,” Jason starts, stops. “Yeah, I think you’re right about that. I don’t know how I missed it the first time, but maybe I just didn’t want to see it.”

The two of them are sitting on the waiting room floor, Dick realizes. It’s something he could see the two of them doing if they had both been alive. He tilts his head back against the wall, forcing himself solid so he doesn’t slip through. He tries to feel normal, just for a moment.

He only opens his eyes when a strange, ominous sensation runs through him. He snaps his head to the side as someone is carried in on a gurney. Whatever it is, Jason senses it too.

“They’re dying,” Dick says, voice barely a whisper as the innate knowledge hits him.

Jason nods. “Yeah. It’s strong too, probably within the hour.

“This is how you knew Bruce would be okay?”

“Yup.” Jason doesn’t sound happy about it at all, and Dick wonders how often he’s felt death since dying.

“When I was dying . . .” Dick trails off, unsure how to ask his question, or if he even wants an answer.

Jason takes a long breath, lets it out like it's weighing him down. “It started two weeks before you died. I couldn’t do anything. I tried, but.” Jason shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

His dead brother, the one Dick couldn’t save, is apologizing for not saving him. The irony does not escape him. “Not your fault. We don’t have to talk about it.”

Jason agrees, and for the longest time, they choose not to talk at all. This time, Dick doesn’t take advantage of the silence to space out. Instead, he worries and thinks in the present.

“Maybe we’re still around to save him,” Dick says, breaking the silence.

“I don’t really know if we’re here for a _reason_ ,” Jason replies, thoughtful. “I think we just sort of _are_.”

“Well, then we’ll just have to force a reason.”

oOo

Jason is right: things get easier with time. A month after Dick’s death, he feels more in control of his ghost abilities. He finally starts to feel like himself most of the time, like a person instead of the ghost of one.

Jason has taught him how to sense and control his outbursts, and Bruce seems to have less and less influence over Dick’s emotional state. Jason was also right about death giving you a lot of time to think and gain perspective; at the rate they’re going, the two of them will become master philosophers by the end of the year.

Bruce also gets better over that month, but it isn’t as much as any of them had hoped, and despite Dick’s continued progress, Bruce’s progress seems to be plateauing. And sometimes, it seems to be declining, turning into something else, something worse. Something he’s learned how to hide from Alfred.

Dick and Jason still can’t figure out how to communicate with the living world, but they’ve been trying, studying. Apparently Bruce went through a paranormal activity phase, and there are several books in his study as evidence.

Most of the books concern proof of paranormal existence, some of them concern how to get rid of them, and none of the books tell them how to make contact with the living from behind death’s veil. Dick and Jason both find it very frustrating that Bruce owns no books from the ghost’s perspective, because, after all, they’re human too—or they were, once.

oOo

Things begin to decline faster.

Bruce becomes more and more self-destructive by the day, and he learns how to hide it just as quickly. He avoids Alfred, for the most part, so the man can’t see the changes as easily. People come to visit—or, people try to visit. Bruce is so effective at getting rid of them that most don’t come back, and the ones that do take a very long and needed respite.

Dick can’t help but feel that this wouldn’t be happening if Bruce had a Robin with him. Bruce had struggled after Dick left, and Alfred had told Dick countless times that his presence had been a light in Bruce’s life. Dick also knew Bruce struggled when Jason would leave home for a few days, and he suffered tremendously after he died.

Dick’s presence had helped, then, but it hadn’t healed him, and maybe that’s because Dick hadn’t been acting as Robin.

Maybe it’s childish of Dick to think that the role he created is what can save Bruce, but it’s also something that gives him hope, purpose. And maybe the only reason Bruce is still alive is because, technically, his Robins are still with him.

Maybe Bruce would be okay if Robin could be there without the need for technicalities. Maybe Dick and Jason just need to learn how to be Robin again, or find someone who can.

oOo

By mid-October, Dick and Jason constantly look to Bruce to make sure the death-sense hasn’t kicked in. It has yet to, but the fear that it will negatively affects both Dick and Jason. A

s Brue’s tensions rise, Dick and Jason find that they have less control over outbursts, they space out more, and they just generally don’t feel great. Not to mention that clinging to Bruce has stopped helping all three of them.

Alfred isn’t doing well either, but whenever Dick or Jason try to get close enough to comfort him, the man shakes so much that he needs to lie down for the rest of the day. They wonder if this increase in sensitivity is a sign that Alfred is getting worse too.

Dick shares his Robin theory with Jason, and he agrees. Dick doesn’t know if it’s because the theory makes sense or if it’s because Jason is getting desperate too, but they both feel helpless in a way that only Robin had been able to fix, so they cling to it now.

Despite their best efforts, however, they still struggle to willfully interact with their world, and as Bruce deteriorates, it becomes even harder. They start to feel like the ghosts they are for the first time, and they know they won’t be able to help Batman like this. It’s an unspoken truth.

One night when Bruce is on patrol, he gets into a fight. As usual, Dick and Jason are tagging along. They know they can’t help Bruce, only watch from a distance. Still, watching, looking at Bruce and knowing how the night will end, gives them a sense of control.

They look: tonight, the fight won’t kill Bruce. He needs help all the same.

Bruce goes down hard and doesn’t get up. The other fighters make a run for it, and Dick and Jason don’t give them a single glance. While they hover over Bruce, trying desperately to help, a kid jumps toward them out of nowhere.

“Batman,” the boy yells, running up to the fallen man and hovering over him in a way that mimics Dick and Jason.

The two ghosts look at each, each quirking an eyebrow. Neither had noticed the boy, it turns out, but both realize that he must have been following them all night. They must be really out of it.

The kid reaches over where Dick and Jason had failed to press the emergency beacon. He presses it easily, like it’s nothing.

He helps Batman, and then he looks up, and Dick swears he looks right at them—not through them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wouldn't it be funny if that was just some random kid and I never mention him again? Anyway, any guesses for who our "mystery" boy is?
> 
> Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it! Comments and kudos are always appreciated! I hope you guys are doing well and staying safe <3
> 
> [tumblr](https://daringyounggrayson.tumblr.com/)


	3. Tim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the last chapter is finally here! I had the last scene of this chapter written for the longest time, but the rest was a bit of a struggle. Probably because Dick is barely in it :/
> 
> Hope you like it, and thanks for sticking with the story!

Being able to see ghosts, Tim has learned, isn’t as scary as he first thought. He’ll never forget the first time he saw a ghost: He was four years old and at his great aunt’s funeral—someone whom he had never met alive. It was his first time at a funeral too, and he’d asked his parents if you always saw ghosts at funerals. They quickly shushed him and berated him later for being rude.

Tim has also learned that it’s best to keep his knowledge of ghosts to himself.

His great aunt wasn’t a bad ghost, but she gave him nightmares nonetheless. His parents didn’t want to hear it and insisted that ghosts weren’t real; they suggested he watch less TV, or stop eating sugar before bed, or stop making up stories for attention.

Years later when he ran into a ghost at school that liked to scare him, his parents told him that if he kept protecting his bullies, they would never stop and other people would stop trying to help.

When Tim met a friendly ghost, his parents told him he was getting too old for imaginary friends and signed him up for little league.

Basically, it didn’t matter how the ghosts made Tim feel, his parents wouldn’t care either way. At one point, they threatened to send him to a therapist for an evaluation if he didn’t drop “the ghost thing.”

So Tim stopped bringing it up to his parents, or any living person for that matter. Even his so-called friends had made fun of him when he’d made the mistake of sharing his ability with the class during a show-and-tell at school. It had been stupid, in retrospect, but he’d also been eight at the time.

Lonely childhood or not, Tim’s ghost-seeing ability has always made him feel kind of special. Like he had a secret superpower that he would be able to use to save the world. Now that he’s older, Tim realizes that saving the world is a bit of a reach. Saving Batman, however, might not be.

oOo

Tim started watching Batman and Robin back when Dick Grayson was still Robin. It hadn’t been long before Jason Todd took over the role, but Tim was happy to have been able to see both of them in action, even if he hadn’t seen Dick’s work first-hand for long. Tim liked watching Batman, too, but it was really the Robins that held Tim’s attention.

He’d follow them around Gotham every so often, snapping pictures and generally being astounded by everything they could do. He’d seen plenty of ghosts while on patrol with them over the years, and if any of them had any information, Tim would try to get it to the dynamic duo. It felt good, using his powers with a purpose and helping Batman and Robin.

After Jason died, though, watching Batman became difficult. He became reckless—and violent. Dick started showing up in Gotham more as Nightwing, which helped, but he couldn’t be there all of the time and the younger man was struggling himself. Then, just when things started to seem like they might be leveling out, Dick died too.

Batman didn’t take it well, and things continued to get worse over the following months. By October, Batman acted like he had a death wish.

Instead of following Batman on patrol to try to help him help Gotham, Tim started doing it to make sure that someone would call for help when Batman needed it. Not if, _when_. It was scary to watch at times, but it needed to be done, especially since Batman’s Robins wouldn’t be able to.

The Robins are still there, though. Ghosts of them, anyway. Tim doesn’t know how well they can communicate. Some ghosts aren’t able to interact with reality at all, caught in their own loops, but Tim hasn’t gotten close enough to them to even try. No matter their communication status, though, Tim’s previous interactions with ghosts tell him that the ghost Robins won’t be able to help Bruce if he finds himself on death’s door.

So Tim continues to follow this new version of the dynamic duo, the one with death and grief constantly hanging over their heads.

It actually took Tim a few days to realize exactly who the ghosts following Batman were. They were in civilian clothes and younger than Bruce’s sons, but it quickly became clear that they _were_ his sons. Tim’s not an expert on all things ghost-related, but after comparing pictures from the last few years, Tim finds that their ghosts are the same ages as when they first put on the Robin suit.

It follows, then, that their ghostly states are Robin-related.

oOo

It’s mid-October when it happens. Batman is in a fight and goes down hard, doesn’t get back up.

The other fighters make a run for it, and Dick and Jason don’t give them a single glance. Instead, they hover over Bruce, watching as if they’re in a trance. That’s when Tim knows he needs to jump in.

“Batman,” Tim yells, running up to the fallen man and hovering over him in a way that mimics Dick and Jason. The two ghosts look at each, each quirking an eyebrow. Tim had assumed that they knew he was following them, but seeing them now, that clearly hadn’t been the case. They must be really out of it.

Tim reaches across Batman and presses the emergency beacon. With nothing else to do, he looks to the Robins and they look right back at him.

“He’s going to be okay,” Tim starts. “I’m going to help him.”

“You can see us,” Dick says, asks.

Tim nods. Dick and Jason exchange looks.

Dick says, “You can help.”

oOo

Tim’s heart hammers in his chest, but he can’t turn back now; Gotham is depending on him, the Robins are depending on him. And now that he’s standing at the gate, there are only three things left to do: get inside, find Mr. Wayne, and convince Mr. Wayne to make him Robin. Just three things. Tim can do three things.

He takes a breath and presses the buzzer outside the gate. He waits, and for a moment—a long moment—he wonders if he’ll have to think of another, more drastic plan to talk to Batman.

But then he hears a voice with a British accent say, “Wayne residence. How may I assist you?” This must be Alfred.

“Uh,” Tim clears his throat and uses all of his willpower not to fidget. “Is Mr. Wayne home?”

“My apologies, but I do not believe you gave me your name, young sir,” the voice tells him. “And Master Bruce did not mention anything about a guest.”

“I’m Tim. Tim Drake. I live in the neighborhood.” Maybe Tim shouldn’t be handing out his name and where he lives. After all, what he’s about to say won’t make anyone in that house happy, and even though Tim’s pretty sure Batman doesn’t kill, he might make an exception if he thinks Tim will put his whole project at risk. But Tim supposes he’s already weighed that risk. “I really need to speak to Mr. Wayne.”

“I’m afraid Master Bruce is feeling a little under the weather.” There’s a pause while Alfred considers Tim. “If, however, you feel your safety is in danger, I am more than willing to assist.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” Tim says without thinking. Had he been thinking, he might have taken the man up on his offer. At the very least, it would have gotten him inside the building faster.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Look, I know Mr. Wayne is Batman.”

Alfred has the nerve, or maybe the wisdom, to laugh. “My dear boy, I’m afraid you are confused. While it is known that Master Bruce does support the Batman financially—”

“I’ll go to the press,” Tim interrupts. It’s a bluff that he knows they won’t be able to risk, no matter how flimsy it is. “Unless you let me talk to him.”

A buzz, and then the gate swings open. Tim’s heart hammers in his chest, but he’s in too deep now; he knows he has no other choice than to do the rest.

Tim steps in and the gate closes behind him. His anxiety stays outside the gate and confidence takes its place. For reasons Tim can’t explain, he knows it will be enough to get the job done.

Tim can’t explain this feeling either, but somehow he knows that if he can just get Batman through October, good things will come in November. For all of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! And I hope I wrote Tim okay 😅 I might write more stuff for this AU at some point, but no idea when that will be
> 
> If you're feeling up to it, comments and kudos are always appreciated <3
> 
> [tumblr](https://daringyounggrayson.tumblr.com/)


End file.
